Sunday, March 21, 2010

'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. This seems to be Sega's mantra when it comes to developing new games for the Wii. Some of their big releases has seen them take out more than just a page off of ideas from other games from other publishers. The examples I'll show below may be multiplatform too.

Madworld

First off is Madworld. Which game is it ripping out of? No More Heroes, from Ubisoft. And of course I'm not talking about the graphical style, which is unique to the game. What I do want to point out is some similarities between the two games in their combat and structure.

Both No More Heroes and Madworld have 'killers' that you have to go up against for the sake of story progression, and there's a ranking system in both games too. Now for the controls. Both games use the A button and B button for attacking. In Madworld, you use both to use your weapon(a chainsaw and other pickups) and your fists. In Heroes, both are ALSO used for a weapon(beam katana) and your fists. And both control schemes involve, to some degree, swinging the Wiimote to attack. Both games have outlandish 'finishing moves' that you can perform with both your weapon on hand and your physical strength(though the ones in Madworld are way more brutal, and more blood is spilt).
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

Okay so maybe this isn't all that fair to the game as there as more Mario Kart clones ever made than I have armpit hair. All Stars Racing is justified by the fact that Sega is also a company with a rich history of characters, much like Nintendo has with Mario Kart(the difference being Nintendo refuses to bring its characters from other franchises into the mix- who wouldn't want Link in a Nintendo kart racing game?). All the bells and whistles from Mario Kart can be seen all over- you have throwing items(green shell), homing missiles(red shell), traps, much everything Mario Kart Wii has. It has online play too, but that's standard fare nowadays.

Just like Mario Kart Wii, All-Stars Racing lets you do tricks and flips in the air. Just like Mario Kart Wii, it lets you race with your Miis(below picture belongs to IGN).

In fact, Mario Kart Wii is everything this game could be, but only done better. Maybe it's this stigma surrounding the Sonic character. I find him obnoxious.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4

'Going back to the series roots' seems to be becoming a popular trend these days, a trend set by Mega Man 9 and its other retro sequel Mega Man 10 (and also in the same vein, Dark Void Zero. Capcom really is pushing this retro thing a lot). Makes sense, that Sega wants to join in to reliving its glory days, by making a brand new sequel to the Sega Genesis Sonic games, available for download through all three major consoles this summer. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was formerly known as Project Needlemouse. To an extent the Sonic series need this retro injection badly as the newer 3D Sonic games are bombing left and right.

Oh yeah, Sega did make some original games of its own on the Wii right? Nights: Journey of Dreams, House of the Dead: Overkill(this game is lucky it wasn't released right after Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles), Sega Superstars Tennis(Mario Tennis could be argued here too). But none of them did particularly well either.

'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. This seems to be Sega's mantra when it comes to developing new games for the Wii. Some of their big releases has seen them take out more than just a page off of ideas from other games from other publishers. The examples I'll show below may be multiplatform too.

Madworld

First off is Madworld. Which game is it ripping out of? No More Heroes, from Ubisoft. And of course I'm not talking about the graphical style, which is unique to the game. What I do want to point out is some similarities between the two games in their combat and structure.

Both No More Heroes and Madworld have 'killers' that you have to go up against for the sake of story progression, and there's a ranking system in both games too. Now for the controls. Both games use the A button and B button for attacking. In Madworld, you use both to use your weapon(a chainsaw and other pickups) and your fists. In Heroes, both are ALSO used for a weapon(beam katana) and your fists. And both control schemes involve, to some degree, swinging the Wiimote to attack. Both games have outlandish 'finishing moves' that you can perform with both your weapon on hand and your physical strength(though the ones in Madworld are way more brutal, and more blood is spilt).
Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing

Okay so maybe this isn't all that fair to the game as there as more Mario Kart clones ever made than I have armpit hair. All Stars Racing is justified by the fact that Sega is also a company with a rich history of characters, much like Nintendo has with Mario Kart(the difference being Nintendo refuses to bring its characters from other franchises into the mix- who wouldn't want Link in a Nintendo kart racing game?). All the bells and whistles from Mario Kart can be seen all over- you have throwing items(green shell), homing missiles(red shell), traps, much everything Mario Kart Wii has. It has online play too, but that's standard fare nowadays.

Just like Mario Kart Wii, All-Stars Racing lets you do tricks and flips in the air. Just like Mario Kart Wii, it lets you race with your Miis(below picture belongs to IGN).

In fact, Mario Kart Wii is everything this game could be, but only done better. Maybe it's this stigma surrounding the Sonic character. I find him obnoxious.

Sonic the Hedgehog 4

'Going back to the series roots' seems to be becoming a popular trend these days, a trend set by Mega Man 9 and its other retro sequel Mega Man 10 (and also in the same vein, Dark Void Zero. Capcom really is pushing this retro thing a lot). Makes sense, that Sega wants to join in to reliving its glory days, by making a brand new sequel to the Sega Genesis Sonic games, available for download through all three major consoles this summer. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 was formerly known as Project Needlemouse. To an extent the Sonic series need this retro injection badly as the newer 3D Sonic games are bombing left and right.

Oh yeah, Sega did make some original games of its own on the Wii right? Nights: Journey of Dreams, House of the Dead: Overkill(this game is lucky it wasn't released right after Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles), Sega Superstars Tennis(Mario Tennis could be argued here too). But none of them did particularly well either.